Solid-state pulsed power for driving a high-power dense plasma focus x-ray source

Solid-state pulsed power technology has been successfully applied to a high average power dense plasma focus (DPF) x-ray point source. In the past, electrode erosion and the associated insulator lifetime have been the primary limiting factors for implementing a DPF x-ray source in a practical x-ray lithographic tool. The solid-state pulsed power supply described here uses fast-switching thyristors, diodes, and saturable magnetics to eliminate current reversal through the DPF electrodes. This has improved the DPF system performance and lifetime by reducing the electrode and insulator vaporization rates more than 20x compared to conventional sparkgap-switched drivers. Erosion measurements indicate that an electrode set can last more than 5 million shots before refurbishment. The DPF source produces an average energy of 7.3 J pulse into 4 pi Sr at a 1.1 keV effective wavelength in similar to 1 Torr of neon gas at repetition rates up to 60 Hz. The x-ray yield efficiency is nominally 0.6%. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0034-6748(00)01303-4].